My name is John Friedberg. I
am a board certified neurologist practicing in
Berkeley,
California.

I was born in Far Rockaway
(NYC) in 1942, graduated
Lawrence High School, Yale University and the
University of Rochester School
of Medicine and for the past twenty years I’ve
been seeing patients with
every conceivable neurological problem, from
headaches to Huntington’s, in my
office and in hospitals.

I am in good
standing with my hospitals,
professional societies and licensing boards and
I’m proud to say I’ve never
been successfully sued.

In 1975 I
published my book "Shock Treatment
Is Not Good For Your Brain" and in 1979 "Shock
Treatment, Brain Damage and
Memory Loss," a peer reviewed article in the
American Journal of
Psychiatry.

I do not believe in
mental "illness." Depression is no more "the same
as diabetes" than heartbreak
is the same as a heart
attack.

I do not
believe in hypothetical
diseases of the mind but there is no mistaking
damage to the brain.
Psychiatric drugs and electroshock inflict real
injury in the name of
treating fictive maladies. Paul Henri Thomas has

And this amazing story documents
that the supposedly beneficial
effects of shock are largely
based on the power
of suggestion!

Hospital Shocked by
Finding No Sock in
Its Shock Machine

by Raymond R. Coffey

Chicago Daily News,September 20, 1974

London. For two years, patients in a mental hospital in the north of England were given electric shock treatments that — unknown to anyone — did not exist.

This bizarre story is recounted in an article in the current issue of World Medicine, a magazine for doctors published here every two weeks. And its author, a doctor involved in the treatment with the nonworking machine, suggests the experience raises a further question whether electric shock treatment — "electrical convulsive therapy," and a controversial treatment anyhow — really does patients any good. For, he says, the patients seemed to benefit as much from being put to sleep in preparation for the shock treatment — with anesthetics — as other patients do from the shock treatment itself.

The trouble began, he writes, when an old shock treatment machine quit working and was replaced with a new model that was "obviously a great improvement on the previous edition." This new machine, he says, "had dials and lights — and switches for different wave forms." But, although the red light went on and needles moved as they were supposed to, he noticed the patients were not twitching as they had under the old machine. He asked if the machine might not be working but was assured by the head nurse that "Yes, it is. This sort doesn't give any reaction (in the patients) . . . It's in the instructions." The doctor checked in the instructions, the nurse seemed to be right, and the doctor says, "We used the apparatus for two years with no complaints from the patients."

Then a new head nurse arrived on the scene and after assisting in only three treatments declared that the machine was "not working." She was told that it was, as patients were not supposed to "twitch" while under treatment from this type of machine. "Look," she said, "I've just come from a hospital with a machine just like this and they twitch all right." The machine was examined — and the new nurse was right.

"All the patients had been getting for two years," the doctor concludes, "was thiopentone and a shot of scoline (anesthetic to put them to sleep) — and no one had noticed."

Tardive Dyskinesia and
hepatitis from psychiatric drugs and amnesia
from ECT.BASIS FOR
OPINIONS

My opinions are based on my
years of experience with
patients and review of records from all over the
country as an expert
witness electroshock malpractice cases. They are
based on ECT statistics
from the six states which mandate reporting; and
of necessity, my opinions
are based on a lifetime following publications
and statements issuing from
the small but vocal minority of psychiatrists
who believe in ECT and usually
nothing but.

Fortunately for me,
the
believers don’t always believe each other; their
data frequently belie their
conclusions; and what they actually do
contradicts what they say they do.
The truth slips out.

As one example: we
have known since the 1950’s
that confining electroshock to the non-verbal
hemisphere (usually the right
as in "unilateral non-dominant ECT") causes less
verbal impairment and
memory loss than bilateral ECT but the
recommendation to begin with
non-dominant ECT is honored mostly in the
breech.

Another
example: the "grandfather" of ECT, Dr. Max Fink
claims the rate of memory
loss is 1 in 200. He has repeated this so often
it sounds like a fact. But
Harold Sackeim, Ph.D., just as much an
enthusiast and just as aggressive [a
user of ECT],
says Fink’s figure has "no scientific
basis."

Who to believe? My view
is that memory loss from ECT
is no "side effect;" it’s the main effect and
the best studies find it in
100% of
subjects.Incidentally, Dr. Fink
didn’t
pick the number 1/200 out of thin air. 1/200 has
consistently been the death
rate from ECT administration - as far back as
1958 and as recently as Texas
and Illinois in the
1990’s.FIVE BIG
LIES

Big Lie 1:
Dr. Fink tells people that ECT is safer
than childbirth. If one out
of every 200 women were dying in delivery it
would be front page
news.

Big Lie 2: ECT
doesn’t cause brain damage. One
picture will refute that. This illustration
[Editorial note:
If you have access to this illustration,
please email it to us using
the email link at the very bottom of this page.] depicts a large hemorrhage from ECT.
Hemorrhages, large and
small, cause permanent seizure disorders in some
patients. (Weisberg, L. Elliott, D
and Mielke,
D. 1991. Intracerebral Hemorrhage
Following
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). Neurology
Vol. 41, p.
1849.)Another MRI study documented a
breakdown of the blood
brain barrier and cerebral edema―brain
swelling―after each and every
shock. (Mander et al. 1987. British
Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol. 151, p.
69-71)

Big lie 3: ECT is
new and improved. The whole point of ECT is to
trigger a convulsion and
there is simply no way around the brain’s
threshold: 100 joules of energy, a
typical "dose," whether brief pulse, square
wave, sine wave, AC or DC,
unilateral or bilateral, with or without oxygen
equals the energy it takes
to light up a 100 watt bulb for one second or
drop a 73 pound weight one
foot. And it’s the energy that does the
damage.

Big lie
4: ECT is a "Godsend"
(Fink again). In March of this
year, Dr. Sackeim published a study in JAMA
showing a "relapse rate" of 84%
within six months of stopping ECT. It is no
coincidence that improvement
ceases just as the concussive effects are
finally waning. Sackeim’s
solution? More ECT. Call it "maintenance"
or call it "continuation," just
don’t stop. (Journal of the American
Medical Association. 2001,
p. 1299-1307).

Big lie
5: No one knows how
ECT works. On the contrary, everyone knows how
ECT works. It works by
erasing memory and terrifying
people.

CONCLUSION

ECT isn’t back - it never
went away. It’s more common
than appendectomy.

What has happened is that
it’s advocates have grown
more arrogant and the number of patients forced
to undergo ECT against their
will is increasing.

This
was brought to public
attention by Paul Henri Thomas fighting for his
life and his mind at Pilgrim
State Hospital on Long Island. Over the past two
years he has been subjected
to 60 shocks and a judge just ordered up 40
more. The newspapers state the
Mr. Thomas was born in Haiti, emigrated from
oppression and was granted
American citizenship.

To be held
down, drugged and forcibly administered
convulsive dose after convulsive
dose of electroshock to the head: can anyone
think of a greater assault on a
human being’s rights - short of death - in the
whole world? And it’s
happening here in the land of the free. That’s
not
acceptable.We
have had 60 years of poignant
testimony from eloquent victims of electroshock.
Ernest Hemingway complained
it ruined his memory and put him out of
business. He killed himself within
weeks of concluding a second course of
ECT.

George
Orwell ends 1984 with his protagonist being
forced to love Big Brother on an
electroshock table.

I urge you
to declare a moratorium on electroconvulsive
therapy until it can be proven
safe by evidence, not
proclamation.

I urge you
to declare a moratorium on
electroconvulsive therapy until patients can be
guaranteed free and informed
choice.

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